This invention relates to information delivery systems and, in particular, to a system for customizing the information that is displayed to a viewer based on optimizing a match between information purveyors, such as advertisers, and the viewer in a manner that is executed local to an information delivery system.
It is a problem in information delivery systems to provide an information recipient with information that is pertinent to the recipient. This entails determining a match between information purveyors, such as advertisers, and the information recipient such that the information that is provided to the information recipient is desired by the information recipient and pertinent to the needs of the information recipient. Existing information delivery systems are based on static predictions of likely audiences, such as profiles of information recipients for different time periods of television broadcasts or in-store advertisements directed to a typical customer. These information delivery systems are static in nature in that they do not change in response to changes in the information receiving audience that they serve. Even in the context of systems such as the World-Wide Web, systems use stale aggregates to make speculative decisions. Therefore, existing information delivery systems are limited in their effectiveness in providing relevant information to their target audiences, since the defined target audiences represent a simple approximation of the ever changing actual audience.
The above described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved by the Location Enhanced Information Delivery System (LEIA) which customizes the information that is displayed to an information recipient based on optimizing a match between information purveyors, such as advertisers, and the information recipients who are local to an information delivery system. The present location enhanced information delivery system presents the information most suited to the real current audience, as measured by location information systems, rather than to a static predicted audience. While the preferred embodiment discloses a beaconing-style wireless technology, the system concept is easily extensible both to other location-information systems, such as license-plate scanning with cameras, and to utilizing the location-information for private displays of information in addition to public displays of information.
The location enhanced information delivery system can be supported with conventional or advanced networking infrastructures. One example of an advanced networking infrastructure appropriate for the location enhanced information delivery system is the asymmetric bandwidth channel network disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/024,278, titled xe2x80x9cBroadcast Data Distribution System With Asymmetric Uplink/Downlink Bandwidthsxe2x80x9d that provides a reduced memory architecture for network-attached elements. The location enhanced information delivery system can also utilize the information similarity measurement technologies disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,939, titled xe2x80x9cSystem for Generation of User Profiles for a System for Customized Electronic Identification of Desirable Objectsxe2x80x9d as a means of enhancing pre-fetching of information likely to be needed, with a consequent reduction in network bandwidth required to support the location enhanced information delivery system. The location enhanced information delivery system can protect users identities using a pseudonymity proxy server disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,938 titled xe2x80x9cPseudonymous Server for System for Customized Electronic Identification of Desirable Objectsxe2x80x9d. An additional advantage for public information-delivery capability of the location enhanced information delivery system is in its environment-friendliness, as the location enhanced information delivery system can determine when zero information recipients are local and turn off the display, resulting in a significant energy savings during idle periods.